


we were rising from the grave

by blackwood (transjon)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (somewhat - it's just little snippets), F/F, Non-Linear Narrative, Recovery, let melanie be angry.....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24772357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transjon/pseuds/blackwood
Summary: She wonders about it, though. In that space between sleep and being awake. That space between real and unreal. Her anger is a ball between her heart and her ribs, real and forgettable like her heartbeat. Like the pulse of her blood. That scar on her leg throbs sometimes with it. It was hers, she thinks, hers to hold and keep and give away. Given the choice, she would’ve kept it forever. She could’ve kept it forever.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Comments: 28
Kudos: 48





	we were rising from the grave

**Author's Note:**

> title is from there will be no divorce by the mountain goats
> 
> i dont know.....i was supposed to write a completely different fic with a completely different ship....and different characters....instead i have written this....

“I mean – do you not get _angry_?”

“Yes,” Melanie says, clipped, “that’s the problem.”

There’s a few beats of silence. 

“Right,” Georgie says finally. Her gaze flickers between Melanie and the wall behind her, and then she sighs, the fight deflating out of her. “Sorry.”

“Do _you?_ ” Melanie asks. “Get angry?”

“No,” Georgie says, quick. “No.”

“Liar,” Melanie says. How she gets angry at things she can’t do anything about. How she looks at the world and finds everything wrong with it. How her hands shake more often than not as she reads the news, white-fisted and shaking. 

Her hand finds its way into Georgie’s hair, fingers scratching over her scalp gently. “Do you like being angry?”

Georgie leans into her hand, and then, quietly, “No.”

Melanie hums. “I do. It’s not good for me, okay? I lose myself. And I don’t –” she looks at Georgie, that look on her face; the shape of her mouth, the furrow of her brow; “I don’t want that.”

–

(the issue is – she does want that. She wants to be angry. for so long it’s been – not all that she has, but something she always has – regardless of what else is happening. Something solid to lean on. Georgie, she reminds herself, is solid. She’s real. She’s here.)

–

“Melanie?” 

“Yeah?” 

Georgie appears in the doorway. “Just got off the phone with the vet. She can squeeze us in today.”

“Oh,” Melanie says and glances down at the cat sleeping in her lap. “What’s wrong with him? He looks fine to me.”

Georgie waves at her dismissively. “Just needs to get his shots. He’s overdue.”

“What, right today?”

“Might as well.”

Melanie looks at her properly, then. The look on her face (neutral), the overall look of her (normal), the stance and posture of her body (normal). She’s not unreadable. There’s just nothing to read. 

“I need to go back soon,” she says. 

“It shouldn’t take _too_ long.”

In her lap, The Admiral makes a quiet _mrp_ sound. “Alright,” she says. “Drop me off on the way back?”

“Sounds good,” she says, and then she practically skips over, cups Melanie’s face with both hands and kisses her forehead once, firm and dry. When she pulls back to look at Melanie again she’s smiling.

“You’re in a good mood today,” Melanie says, a grin spreading over her own face almost involuntarily. Infectious, she thinks, in a good way for once. 

Georgie blushes at that. “Yeah, well,” she says, “I like being around you.”

“Oh,” Melanie says. She thinks she can feel a blush spreading over her own face. “I like being around you too.”

–

The anger is almost not real when she’s with Georgie. Like it’s a dream. Like it’s a little ball beside her heart. Tucked away. Easy to ignore, just like her heartbeat. 

–

“I’m going to kill him,” Georgie says.

Melanie swings her legs back and forth where she’s sitting on the edge of the hospital bed. She feels small. Like a child. Like she’s been brought to A&E after pushing a Lego piece up her nose. “Don’t.”

“Fine,” Georgie says, “I’m going to pull him apart limb by limb. I’m going to –”

“This isn’t a bad thing,” Melanie says. Her eyes hurt. The gauze and the bandages put pressure on places she’s not used to having pressure on. She’s not angry. She’s just exhausted. Like she could sleep for days. 

“He made you _gouge your eyes out_!”

“He didn’t. He didn’t make me do anything.” 

Georgie’s footsteps pace around the room angrily. “Does it matter if he forced you to or not? If he literally held a gun to your head?”

“Of _course_ it matters. And even if he –” Melanie takes a breath, “I’m free. Okay? It’s over.”

The footsteps stop, and then they approach. Melanie’s breathing goes shallow in anticipation of – of something. Anything. Whatever’s about to happen. Whatever’s about to break the stillness of the air immediately around her. Georgie’s hand touches her shoulder and then travels up her neck, along her jaw, up to her cheek. Her fingers stop just shy of where the bandages meet skin, and she sighs.

“Yeah,” she says quietly. “I suppose so.”

Melanie grabs her by the wrist gently, and when Georgie allows it she guides her hand to her mouth. The noise Georgie makes when she kisses the back of her hand might be a sob. 

Relief. Melanie wonders if it’s relief. If it’s resignation. If it’s all of her emotions boiling over. That ball of anger coming apart. All the bits and pieces making it up rearranging themselves into other shapes. The parts of its sum. 

She wonders if hers is going to do that too. If it’s going to come apart like a ball of yarn. 

–

“You don’t have to _fix_ me, you know?” 

Melanie can’t see her, of course, but she feels the mattress move as Georgie rolls over to face her, and hears the rustle of fabric, the shifting of the air as Georgie’s hand finds her face, cups her jaw. 

“I’m not trying to fix you.” Her voice is rough with near-sleep.

“I–”

“You’re not _broken_.”

“I don’t think I am.” There’s an unspoken _but I think you do_ in it that she knows Georgie picks up on, because her hand falls away. 

“I’m tired,” she says, and rolls over to face the wall again. 

“Okay,” Melanie says, unwilling to turn this into a fight. “Goodnight, then.”

There’s silence for a bit. Melanie wonders if she’s going to go to sleep without saying it back, but then Georgie turns over again. “I don’t think you’re broken.”

“Okay,” Melanie says again. “It’s not your responsibility to fix me.”

Georgie sighs. “I don’t –”

“I have a therapist.”

“Are you going to just ignore me?”

“I just don’t think it’s productive to argue about it, okay? Just – I’m alright. I’m out.”

Silence. 

“I’m not going to leave you,” she says, quietly. “I’m not going back.”

“Okay,” Georgie whispers. “Love you.”

“I love you,” Melanie says back immediately. “Don’t worry about me so much.”

–

“They took it away,” she says into the skin of Georgie’s shoulder blade. “You know? They just – dug it out.”

“Right,” Georgie says. “But you didn’t want it.”

“No,” Melanie says. “I didn’t.”

Georgie twitches like she wants to turn around but Melanie doesn’t move away so she can’t. Not easily anyway.

“But you’re upset about it.”

Melanie is quiet for a bit. “Not – not upset. But I –,” beat, “it’s not important.”

“Are you sure?” Georgie asks. There’s an audible conflict in her voice. “You can talk about it.”

Melanie closes her eyes, presses a kiss into her skin. “No, it’s fine.”

“Okay.” 

She wonders about it, though. In that space between sleep and being awake. That space between real and unreal. Her anger is a ball between her heart and her ribs, real and forgettable like her heartbeat. Like the pulse of her blood. That scar on her leg throbs sometimes with it. It was hers, she thinks, hers to hold and keep and give away. Given the choice, she would’ve kept it forever. She could’ve kept it forever. 

–

Georgie walks into the room halfway through her scrambling for the pieces of the vase she’d knocked off the side table. Not on purpose – just – she had forgotten it was there. At least it was just decorative, nothing in it, no water, no flowers. Just ceramic. 

“Melanie?” 

“Sorry,” Melanie says. “Sorry.”

“No,” Georgie says, and kneels down next to her, hand on Melanie’s shoulder, “stop – back away, okay? You’re – Melanie, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

Melanie allows her to move her backwards. She feels like a rag doll. Pliable. Malleable. She gets on her feet, and then backs away further, Georgie’s hand on her arm. She feels like a child in a waiting room with a Lego block stuck in her nose again. 

The heels of her balled fists press against her eyes. It makes her _angry_. She wants to punch something, suddenly. The sofa is right behind her – her back touches it when she backs away too much – and she thinks about tearing the cushions apart with her bare hands. Her fingers twitch. It would be so satisfying. The rip of the fabric. The feathers flying everywhere. 

Are there feathers? Inside these cushions? She supposes not. It’s a nice sofa but not that nice. Fluff, then. Spongy foam. Stretchy and crumbly. 

“I’m going to get the dustpan,” Georgie says. “And the broom.”

“Okay,” Melanie says, and thinks about throwing herself on the floor. Rolling over the pieces of ceramic, or crumbling them into dust in her hands. Good, she thinks, I’m good now. Her hands twitch but she doesn’t give into it.

–

“It’s not me anymore,” Melanie says. 

“Okay,” Georgie says. In her lap, the Admiral makes a quiet _murp_ sound. 

“It’s not good for me.”

“Okay.”

Tomorrow she’s going to call her therapist. It’s not her anymore. It’s not.

–

Or maybe she’s broken after all. 

–

Should she have fought them off? 

She wonders about it. Next to her, Georgie is lying still, not asleep, not awake. When she traces circles on the exposed skin of her back she makes a purring sound. Like a cat. Melanie tries to imagine Georgie as a cat. Her dark hair as long fur. Would she sit in Melanie’s lap, like the Admiral? Would she make her work for her affection? Would she start purring as soon as Melanie walks into the room?

Should she have fought them off? Should she have held onto it? She brings a hand to her chest. Is there anything there anymore? Her hand moves up to her throat. Her fingers feel cool against the skin. Her ball of anger. Hers. Did it become too small to feel? To find? Is it there?

–

Maybe it would be easier to be angry at Jon. 

No, she thinks, it _would_ be easier. 

When Georgie talks about him it’s in little bursts. That’s where Jon would put all of his papers when he thought she didn’t know where he was hiding them. In university Jon would chew on the ends of his cigarettes. Remember when Jon told her to gouge out her eyes? Remember when –

“Does it matter?” she asks, before she can stop herself. “Does _he_ matter?”

Georgie goes quiet. “Melanie,” she says, and Melanie feels guilty, immediately, completely. 

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know,” Georgie says, quiet as anything. “I want goulash. Can we get takeaway for dinner?”

“Yeah,” Melanie says, helpless and guilty and _not angry_. “That’s fine.”

–

“Remember when you asked if I ever got angry?”

“Yeah,” Georgie says. 

Melanie picks at the loose string at the sleeve of her shirt. “Well, I do.”

“I know,” Georgie says. She sounds confused. Like it’s obvious, and Melanie supposes it must be. 

“Is that –”, she swallows, “is that okay?”

Georgie’s hand closes around her wrist, gentle, slow. Long, slender fingers. “Yeah,” she says, “of course it’s okay.”

“It’s still me.”

“I know.”

Pause. “It might always be.”

Georgie’s fingers come up to trace little half moons under each of her eyes, one and then the other, one and then the other. “I guess what matters is what you do with it.”

“I suppose so,” Melanie says. “It’s not always productive, though.”

“No,” Georgie says. “It’s not.”

Does Georgie use her anger productively? Does she know what to do with it? Does she get angry in ways that help others? Melanie thinks about her voice when Jon’d come by. She thinks about her footsteps in the hospital room. What is productive? What is helpful? 

“Yours isn’t either,” Melanie says quietly.

“No,” Georgie agrees. There’s reluctance in her voice that Melanie recognizes as her own as well. Her heart thumps in her chest to meet it halfway. Soundwave to muscle. Solidarity injected directly into her veins. “It’s not.”

–

Melanie picks the flowers.

“Baby’s breath,” she says. “And marigolds.”

“Strange combination,” Georgie says. “Any particular reason?”

Melanie shrugs. “Just feel like them. Oh, and poppies, if they have them.”

“Okay,” Georgie says, and moves closer to kiss her on the cheek. Her perfume smells good. Undertones of vanilla. Some fruit or another. Melanie remembers someone telling her that fruit perfumes are for little girls. That after eighteen you need to let them go. Georgie wears it well, regardless. She thinks maybe she shouldn’t care, anyway. Melanie wonders if the kiss leaves lipstick on her cheek. She wonders if it did, if Georgie will wipe it away. Georgie pulls away and doesn’t touch her cheek with her hand, so Melanie supposes the answer to at least one of those questions is no. 

Georgie’s hand finds hers, and squeezes it gently. Melanie responds by swinging their hands a little bit, back and forth. “Do you want to do something else before we go home?”

Melanie pauses to think. They could get coffee, she supposes. Or pastries. Something domestic, and sweet, and indulgent. To go with the theme. Flowers already tick all those boxes. 

“No,” she says. “I think I’m good. You?”

“Nah,” Georgie says. “I’m ready to go back home.”

Melanie grabs a gentle hold of Georgie’s arm. “Do you think he’s going to try to eat the flowers?”

Georgie snorts. “Oh, absolutely.”

Melanie smiles as well. The idea of the Admiral meowing sorrowfully in Georgie’s arms, trying to reach the vase, the flowers in it. Paws reaching out to bat at them. “Poor cat,” she says. 

“Yeah,” Georgie agrees, “he’s _so_ mistreated.”

–

Balls of anger. Balls of white. Balls of –

“Georgie?” 

“Yeah?”

“Will you braid my hair?”

“Sure,” she says, “how come?”

Melanie shrugs. “No reason.”

Her mum used to do it for her. Every morning, when she was little, and then occasionally when she was older. Her first girlfriend would do it, as well, when they’d watch telly, just to keep her hands busy, braiding and taking it apart, again and again. 

“Come sit on the floor, then,” Georgie says, and Melanie moves obediently, puts her body between Georgie’s legs. Georgie’s hands are confident when they touch her hair, start running through it to get out the knots and tangles. “How many braids? French, fishtail, dutch, something else?”

“You pick,” Melanie says, and then after a second, quietly, “I trust you.”

Georgie’s hands twitch in her hair, and then she takes a breath. Vulnerable. Secret. They’ve said _I love you_. They’ve made it a household name. Not a shrine. Not a prayer. They’ve made it something easy enough to say during an argument. Trust is different. Trust is _I’ll let you push me away from my desire when it overwhelms me._ Trust is _I’ll lay myself bare for you and know you won’t hold me down and dig the things you don’t like about me out of my body with a scalpel_. 

“Fishtail,” Georgie says. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Melanie says. There’s a ball in her throat. It’s small. It’s light. She looks for the other ball within her – the one that she loses sometimes – the one she finds herself becoming sometimes – and finds it tucked safely beneath her heart. Still there, she thinks, still there.

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr at blqckwoods.tumblr.com and i am tired


End file.
